GE Wind Repowering Scheme Puts Wind Whiners To Bed

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Wind repowering is one vivid level of sunshine for the US wind business, which is going through unsure instances because the incoming Trump administration takes the reins of nationwide vitality coverage. As an alternative of attempting to construct new wind farms from scratch, the repowering subject re-uses websites with present generators, thus avoiding the political battles bedeviling new wind developments.

The Energy Of Wind Repowering

Wind repowering can take many kinds. Some initiatives protect the turbine tower and solely substitute the turbine, the blades, or each. Some substitute the whole turbine from the muse on up, and others contain recasting the wind farm to incorporate fewer generators. The widespread thread is {that a} repowering venture will increase the capability of an present wind website.

One fascinating instance to cross the CleanTechnica radar is a venture in Pennsylvania that recast an present 35 turbine, 70 megawatt wind farm right into a 33 turbine, 73 megawatt array. The brand new generators which might be engineered to optimize low wind speeds on the website, accounting for the elevated capability with two fewer generators.

Final summer season the California agency Clearway Vitality Group described a repowering venture beneath manner at its Cedro Hill wind farm in Webb County, Texas. The location was commissioned in 2010 with a capability of 150 megawatts. The repower will advert one other 10 megawatts. “Upon completion, the repower will add another fifteen years to the project’s operating life and extend property taxes and landowner payments to Webb County by $27 million,” the corporate famous

An much more placing instance comes from Wyoming, the place a repowering venture reduce the variety of classic 1990’s-era turbines at a wind farm from 68 down to simply 13, whereas increasing total output by 60%.

On the manufacturing facet, GE Vernova is taking full benefit of the wind repowering motion. Final week the corporate famous that it took repowering orders for brand spanking new nacelles and drive trains totaling more than 1 gigawatt in 2024, manufactured at its facility in Pensacola, Florida.

“The technical benefits of repowering are clear,” GE Vernova emphasizes. “Repowering increases the size, output, and longevity of existing turbines to capture more reliable renewable energy for a longer period of time.”

New All-In-One Package deal Takes The Guesswork Out Of Wind Repowering

One other US agency lively within the repowering subject is the Chicago-based startup PivotGen. The corporate shortly established a footprint in new-build wind and photo voltaic initiatives after launching simply three years in the past, and final week it added a soup-to-nuts wind repowering service to its core enterprise.

“PivotGen offers a unique and proprietary process of leveraging financial, technical, and operational resources to offer a repowering solution customized down to the site, and at times turbine and component level,” PivotGen explains.

“Repowering is complex and highly variable from project to project; we know this with the team having repowered over 2GW of wind projects,” the corporate’s CEO and co-founder Tim Rosenzweig emphasizes, being attentive to the corporate’s intensive expertise within the wind repowering subject.

They’ve their work reduce out for them PivotGen calculates that onshore wind initiatives within the US totaling greater than 50 gigawatts in capability are not less than 10 years previous, making them potential alternatives for repowering.

The Repowering Distinction

Repowering is greater than only a matter of compressing further clear kilowatts out of the identical website. As famous by PivotGen, an growing older wind farm is a much less environment friendly one, and that has a knock-on impact on grid operations. “In addition to underproducing their potential, age-related declines can reduce grid reliability and decrease returns to investors, while also underutilizing existing interconnection agreements,” PivotGen notes.

The corporate additionally attracts consideration to the ballooning US interconnection queue, as newly accomplished initiatives throughout the nation wait their flip to begin sending energy to the grid. The wait can final for years. Based on PivotGen’s figures, the queue now totals 2 terawatts’ price of renewable vitality initiatives. In the meantime, older wind farms are already sitting on baked-in however under-used interconnections.

PivotGen factors out that older wind farms have already got substations and transmission strains at hand, eliminating the potential for delays over prices and permits for brand spanking new interconnection infrastructure.

“Repowering offers an efficient, rapid and cost-effective way to ensure existing wind power sites continue to produce at maximum capacity, ensuring uninterrupted power to accommodate this growing power demand,” PivotGen emphasizes, referring to the surging information heart business.

Onwards And Upwards For The US Wind Trade

It’s no secret that incoming President Trump hates wind turbinesan perspective that has already set nerves jittering within the offshore wind business. That’s comprehensible contemplating that offshore wind leases that come beneath the executive wing of the federal authorities, by the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration on the Division of the Inside.

In distinction, onshore wind farms are positioned primarily on non-public lands. State and county-level regulatory roadblocks are rising, however for probably the most half they cowl new wind farm proposals. Wind repowering initiatives have largely escaped discover, not less than to this point.

That would change if the opposition catches on to the substantial potential for repowering to extend the nation’s put in wind vitality capability by repowering.

In January of 2024 the Canadian agency Enervus Intelligence Analysis ran the numbers and calculated that the amount of wind capacity undergoing a repower within the US already matched the capability of latest wind farms beneath development, with every totaling 7 gigawatts over the upcoming 12 months.

Together with the interconnection advantages famous by PivotGen, Enervus additionally identified that repowering initiatives can benefit from any remaining interval left on an present energy buy settlement.

“In this environment of rising costs, a wind repower has significant upside over a new build and developers are starting to take notice,” explains Enervus VP Scott Wilmot. “Repowering can often be done under existing premium-priced power purchase agreements (PPAs) that have remaining term.”

“More developers are opting to repower instead of building new wind plants in an effort to reduce capex and operations and maintenance costs, and boost power production,” he added.

Primarily based on a calculation of the optimum circumstances for a wind repowering venture, the agency got here up with a listing of 261 potential targets for a complete of virtually 21 gigawatts.

The upcoming 4 years ought to be very fascinating ones for the US wind business…

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Photograph (cropped): Wind repowering initiatives can skim over the obstacles and pitfalls that bedevil new wind farm proposals, including important new capability to the US renewable vitality profile (courtesy of GE Vernova).